


render death and forever with each breathing

by bropunzeling



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Withdrawal, mentions of drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bropunzeling/pseuds/bropunzeling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most days, it's barely even there.</p>
<p>(For the prompt: "Joan holding Sherlock after nightmares or through symptoms of withdrawal. No romance, please. Just super platonic best buddies 5ever.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	render death and forever with each breathing

**Author's Note:**

> I finally have an ao3 account, so reposting here! This fic also appears at the elementary-fic community on lj. Warnings include mentions of past drug abuse and withdrawal symptoms (which have since been jossed due to guessing on which drug Holmes was addicted to). Title from somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings.

Most days, it’s barely even there.

A tap of the fingers. Head rolling on the neck, spine cracking in protest. Eyes flicking in every direction.

It all seems so – normal. Close enough, anyways, when he keeps rattling off facts in the hopes of finding the one that sticks, clicking into the case like keys in a lock. Another dose of inattention, the relentless intellect that barely focuses on anything but a puzzle – all of these are familiar, are safe, and so she leaves them be.

Similarly, she doesn’t comment on the sleeping pills left on the counter. At two am, the packaging crumpled and glinting in the kitchen’s fluorescent lights possess a certain kind of luster unseen in proper daylight. 

That was a bit pretentious. She’d apologize, but she knows her thought processes well enough to recognize the symptoms of twenty hours without sleep and counting. She’s had too many cups of coffee in the small hours of the night to underestimate the troubles of sleep deprivation. 

But she can hear his voice through the door, drifting out in the crack between wood and floor. Padding towards it, the voice gets louder, more strained, punctuated by sharp breaths and lasting gasps.

The knock on the door is soft, but she can’t help but think of it as booming. “Holmes?”

He quiets, but she can still hear him breathing. It’s disconcerting, how loudly his lungs work. Each breath a beep from the ECG. Deafening.

“Holmes? Are you alright?”

This time he answers her, accent slurring his words in the dark. 

“The symptoms of stimulant withdrawal are only emotional, Watson. Currently I’m exhibiting insomnia and anxiety, though I’m sure you’ve noticed the others.”

“I’m coming in.”

The door takes a moment, the knob stubborn under her hands. When it opens, it reveals Holmes, shirtless and sweaty, head in hands and staring at his own feet; tattoos stand in stark relief against his skin. Messy covers, a few pillows, and the last of his unstained blankets lie in piles on the bed. He’s left the light on.

Walking towards him, she dodges an origami sculpture and a pile of mildewing books. Her socks slide on old clothes, and when she sits next to him, the bed sinks beneath her, fabric slippery under her pajamas.

Holmes does not look up, but continues to address the hardwood, palms muffling his mouth. 

“I only ever did coke, but I thought about – I always wondered whether the high would be different. Sometimes, I designed experiments for testing different stimulants and their effects, on myself of course, but I always forgot them when I was coming down. But I know – I know I never factored in….”

He pauses, and she can see the strain of the words in the muscles of his back, the tremors in his shoulders and the shifting of his skin. When she pulls him towards her, the shift is minute, a moment of pulling him off-balance that accelerates into a lean. His head hits her collarbone, and he rests at the junction of her scapula and her clavicle. Under her hands, his hair feels sticky and soft and fine.

“I don’t know if I’ll be alright. I don’t _know_ –“

His words hit her shoulder. She watches the lights buzz above her, chin resting on the crown of his skull while her fingers sooth the nape of his neck. When she speaks, her vocal folds hum against his skull.

“You don’t have to know.” When her eyes slide shut, the light presses down, and she sees the capillaries in her skin. She thinks of the ECG, each beep telling her another moment of living, and listens to Holmes breathe.

“I’ll know it for you.”


End file.
